Brad Pitt sat down with actor Anthony Hopkins for a discussion for Interview magazine, where the two actors opened up and shared their struggles with drinking, coming to terms with their past mistakes, and types of happiness that come with growing older.
The 55-year-old actor began the discussion with a lengthy and personal dialogue between the two and asked Hopkins about whether he believes in fate. “And I don’t mean in destiny or greatness,” Pitt asked. “I just mean that things are fated.”
Pitt, who shared he has come to believe in fate in his recent years, asked Hopkins to expand on this.
“My impression is that I sat on this big beast, whatever it is—life. At some point, I made an unconscious choice to sit on this beautiful, powerful thing. And I just go where it takes me,” explained Hopkins. “I think that’s what happens to people like you and myself. We don’t even know why. Maybe it’s a desire to escape from something. But what I believe now is that we can’t take credit or blame.”
Pitt responded to this and throughout the interview, we did not only learn about Hopkin’s inner musings – we also got to see an honest look into what Pitt has been internally battling with during recent years.
“I’m realizing, as a real act of forgiveness for myself for all the choices that I’ve made that I’m not proud of, that I value those missteps, because they led to some wisdom, which led to something else. You can’t have one without the other,” said Pitt. “I see it as something I’m just now getting my arms around at this time in my life. But I certainly don’t feel like I can take credit for any of it.”
Pitt and Hopkins first worked together on the 1994 western epic Legends of the Fall and then worked side by side in 1998’s fantasy drama Meet Joe Black.
After Pitt’s response, Hopkins also mentioned the actor’s struggles with alcohol: “I’ve read you had a struggle with booze and all that.”
“Well, I just saw it as a disservice to myself, as an escape,” the actor responded back to Hopkin’s question.
Hopkins also opened up about his own struggles with alcoholism, but added that he’s not an “evangelist about it.” The 81-year-old actor talked about how that chapter in his life happened for a reason, and he’s moved on.
“So you’re embracing all your mistakes. You’re saying, ‘Let’s be our foibles, our embarrassment. There’s beauty in that,'” Pitt said.
Pitt then talked about how the world is living during a time where everyone is “judgemental and quick to treat people as disposable.”
He added: “We’ve always placed great importance on the mistake. But the next move, what you do after the mistake, is what really defines a person. We’re all going to make mistakes. But what is the next step? We don’t, as a culture, seem to stick around to see what that person’s next step is. And that’s the part I find so much more invigorating and interesting.”
It is assumed that the actor was referring to his mistakes he’s made in his romantic relationships.
In an interview published in The New York Times earlier in the year, Pitt spent a year and a half at Alcoholic Anonymous after his divorce from actress Angelina Jolie in 2017. Since then, the 55-year-old actor has remained committed to sobriety.
In the latest dialogue with Interview magazine, Pitt has shown that he has been working towards the best version of himself.
“I’m human,” Pitt said in the interview with Hopkins. “We’re human, we want purpose, we want meaning in our lives. But to attain that, the key is two things: staying creative and being with the people you love.”
Pitt also spoke about being more comfortable with his vulnerability. Hopkins asked him if he cries often, and Pitt revealed: “I am quite famously a not-crier. Is that a term? I hadn’t cried in, like, 20 years, and now I find myself, at this latter stage, much more moved—moved by my kids, moved by friends, moved by the news. Just moved. I think that’s a good sign. I don’t know where it’s going, but I think it’s a good sign.”
Brittany R
Brittany is a writer who is obsessed with rom-com movies, Gossip Girl, reality television, fashion, and pop-culture. When she isn't reporting on the latest celeb buzz, she is filling up her online shopping cart without checking out.
